Brunanburh had been a titanic struggle. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle speaks of how the fighting lasted from morning to night, until “the field grew dark with the blood of men.” Blood spilled from warriors of no less than four separate kingdoms. The scribes speak of how the ground was littered with men impaled upon spears.
This was human devastation on a scale that hadn’t been on the island in living memory.
And now the Scots, Northmen, and Strathclyde Britons were fleeing the field… but this wasn’t over.
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